Hillside Retaining Wall

trlong · Oct 3, 2005

Arcane,

Nice looking rock! Your wife should be very impressed. I think the "setting" may be a bit expensive though /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif.

Hope the wall goes well. Careful on your back...I've been a might sore from forgetting my limitations a few times lately.

Tom

Arcane · Oct 3, 2005

Tom

I've got over a mile of walls to fix. The first step has been to cut/kill/eliminate the stuff growing 20' high and 10' deep on each side of the wall: poison ivy trees as thick as your wrist, wild grape, asiatic bittersweet, wild rose, virginia creeper, and chokecherry. It grows back faster than I can deal with it, but the other problem is that in pulling the cuttings and/or the stumps I've knocked over sections of wall.

That Faulkner hydraulic thumb for a JD 46 BH looks pretty interesting for picking up and placing 50-200 lb. wall rocks back in their places. What did you see as the pros and cons? I'd need to find someone to install it.

Richard

catvet · Oct 3, 2005

Tom,

Looking good. Hopefully can get down and see it in person sometime.

Jerry

trlong · Oct 3, 2005

Richard,

Sounds like you need dynamite more than a tractor. That's a major undertaking.

Sorry, I forgot to discuss the "Thumb". The major drawback with the Faulkner thumb is the $'s. A quote of $800 for the straight mechanical thumb, w/o shipping or weld on costs is prohibitive for me. I'd love one but think that $800 is excessive. I would think for that price (somewhere in the $1K range by the time one was done) I could get it fabricated with hydraulics. I'm still trying to find one that is strong, yet within my budget. As for Pro's, all I can think of is all the things I could pick up with it, much more easily than by hand, or with just the backhoe. Besides picking up stones, I'd love to be able to safely pick up a log for blocking, without having it sliding around between the bucket and the dipper stick.

Other TBN'ers, with hydraulic thumbs should be able to offer a lot more info on 1st hand experience with hydraulic thumbs.

Tom

trlong · Oct 4, 2005

Jerry,

Look for a pm. Will try to get to it tonight.

Tom

trlong · Oct 9, 2005

Probably the last pic for the season. Sun's getting low early these days and I need to get my "Fall" projects underway. I did get a couple more stones on, after this pic (taken 5-Oct) and they fairly big ones. Would still like to find a few more like the one about center top of the wall. It's 6-8" thick by 3' wide by nearly 4' deep. Takes a bit of finesse to get the big ones on top but, hopefully worth the time and effort. Well, next Spring, maybe, if the wall stays put /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif.

Tom